


I Came for You: An Outlaw Love Song

by TrashCandy



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Past Child Abuse, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:49:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9521510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashCandy/pseuds/TrashCandy
Summary: Scarlett and Nisha cope with the legacy their parents left them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> AU in which Nisha and Jack were never a thing.
> 
> Deepest thanks to LittlePorcelainDoll for helping me with this story. If she did any more, she'd probably get a co-writer credit. Go check out her stuff on FFN and tell her how awesome she is.

 

“The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for.”

— Henry Home, Lord Kames

⁂⁂⁂ 

 

“My mom's dead.”

Those words should taste like honey in Nisha's mouth. She should be _singing_. But for all the prolonged and painful deaths she imagined for her mother, the reality didn't live up. Maybe it could only ever pale in comparison to the sixteen years of hell her mother put her through.

Scarlett's chipper voice bursts out into song, and Nisha grumbles. “Ding dong, the bitch is dead! Y'know, I've got some rum I've, eh, _borrowed_ and stashed away for a special occasion, and I would say this _definitely_ qualifies. Come on, then!”

Nisha glares at Scarlett until she slinks back down onto the wooden bench behind her. Nisha resumes pacing, shimmering snow crunching under her boots.

“Oh...kay,” Scarlett chews her bottom lip and rubs the back of her neck. “Clearly, I'm missing something here. Help me out? It... it was _you_ who killed her, yeah?”

“The hell do you think, Red?” Nisha snaps, then exhales sharply through her nose. It's a wonder Scarlett would even ask. Nisha stares out towards the rising sun, eyes shaded by the brim of her lavender ridge top. “If I did, I'd be dancing on the slag's corpse.”

In a way, it was so like her mother to die like this. Only fitting she would even find a way that would deny Nisha the gratification. Nisha reaches into her pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes and taps one out, trying to ignore the heavy sigh she draws from Scarlett.

“Those things'll kill you, y'know,” Scarlett says, her voice a half-step quieter than usual.

Nisha lets out an annoyed sigh. Scarlett's starting to sound like her dad – the absolute _last_ thing she needs to deal with. “Just 'cause _you_ quit don't mean you get to be all high 'n mighty on me.” She flicks her lighter and holds the end of the cigarette to the flame. “'Sides, it just takes off the years at the end. And those suck, anyway.”

“Really, now, I thought we were going to grow old and senile together!”

Despite herself, Nisha lets out a chuckle at the thought of Scarlett, aged seventy years, hair white as the snow she's standing in. If she lived to see it, Nisha would probably still call her Red. “Ugh. You imagine that? Us, all arthritic and wrinkly and gray?”

Scarlett flips her hair over her shoulder. “Oh, I think I'd age rather gracefully, really.” A smirk spreads over her lips as she leans back into the bench. “I'd be what they call 'distinguished'.”

“Uh huh.” She knows she's setting herself up when she glances over and sees Scarlett smirking back at her, but decides to humor her anyway. “And me?”

Scarlett studies Nisha from head to toe for a moment, then tilts her head to the side. “Well... you'd have plenty of interesting stories to tell,” she says with a wink.

Nisha raises her cigarette to her lips to hide her smirk as she looks back to the horizon. “Asshole.”

Nisha watches as the smoke from her breath mingles with the cold winter air. She looks down at the cigarette hanging loosely between her fingers, her free hand tugging at the sleeve of her jacket. The acrid odor of tobacco and her cigarette's orange glow drag her out of the cold, back to their old plastic kitchen table, pitted and worn from when Nisha's anxious fingernails would dig and pick at its surface. Her wrist laid flat against the tabletop, her mother's bony hand clamping it in place. Calculating mahogany eyes probing her, daring her to protest. Fat, glowing cigar in her other hand. Grinds its glowing end into the crook of Nisha's elbow. The pain radiates in hot spears all through the length of her arm. But she didn't give the bitch the satisfaction of screaming.

Nisha didn't even dodge her mother's irate gaze. She just channeled all that searing pain, all that rage in a scornful glare at her mother's blurred face. Amidst the grunts and shallow breaths escaping Nisha's teeth was a single word, maybe the only word that could bring Nisha any solace when she looked at her mother's dispassionate face: _Someday_...

The cigarette drops from her fingers into the snow. She grinds it under her heel. Jaw clenched, she crushes the pack of cigarettes in her hand and, with a shout, hurls it into a snowbank. 

“Whoa, hey there.” Scarlett gets up from the bench and walks behind Nisha, slowly putting her arms around her. “It's okay. You'll be alright.”

“Oh, don't you start with this shit! Not _you_ , Red!” Nisha breaks Scarlett's hug, and kicks a clump of snow into powder. “It's not— she doesn't get to just _die_ like this!”

Drowning, even in a freezing lake, was too good for her mother. There was no justice in her dying from some freak accident. Nisha balls her hands into fists, heat rising in her face from knowing she'll never watch the light fade from those hollow eyes as she crushes her mother's windpipe under her thumbs.

“No. She was supposed to die because of _me_ ,” Nisha says, looking into Scarlett's concerned eyes. “She was supposed to die knowing _I won_!”

Scarlett's lips move soundlessly, and Nisha sighs and turns away. She's not sure why she expected Scarlett to understand. What does she know? She'd only _seen_ the bruises on her ribs, the burn marks on her arms. She never _lived_ the fear. She never tasted the indignity of having to lie down and take every beating as if it were her due, knowing the sooner she accepted it, the sooner it would be over. She never felt the life leave her sister's frail hand, or the stab in the chest when her mother stood over her, looked her dead in the eye, and said, "Why wasn't it you?"

Nisha sits on the cold bench, takes in a slow breath, then closes her eyes as they start to sting with the rage welling in her throat. She rests her forehead on her palms. Part of her wishes Scarlett would mock her for crying. At least then something might feel normal.

Instead, Scarlett sits at her side. Nisha's back tenses as Scarlett slowly puts her arm around her shoulders. Despite Scarlett's comforting air, Nisha finds herself shying away from the contact. “I get it, okay?” Scarlett says.

Nisha bites her lip. Bullshit.

“With everything I saw her put you through, I get it. But... she's dead. And now... now, you don't have to be afraid anymore.”

“Dammit, Red, I wasn't _afraid_ of her—”

“For hell's sake,” Scarlett mutters, shaking her head. “She's gone. You can live free of her now.”

A slow breath escapes Nisha's lips as her gaze drifts off towards the snow-covered mountains to the west. If only it were that simple. Her mother may be dead, but she is far from gone. And a deep shadow in Nisha tells her that her she never will be.

“You're here now,” Scarlett says, leaning into Nisha. “She's not. That's what matters.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You're _here_ ,” Scarlett says, putting a finger to Nisha's lips, “and that's _all_ that matters.”

Nisha takes off her hat, wrings its brim in her hands, and allows Scarlett to run a gentle hand along her hair. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Nisha wasn't supposed to be left with the legacy of the victim. All she wanted, all she _needed_ , was to take on that power.

Even if only for one moment.

Scarlett puts her hand to the side of Nisha's head and cradles her against her own shoulder. “Listen to me just this once, okay? This isn't about winning or losing. This isn't even about surviving. This is about _living_. The only power she has over you now is the power that you give her.”

Loathe as Nisha is to admit it even to herself, Scarlett may not be completely wrong. This is just the kind of legacy her mother would want to leave behind: to keep her a prisoner of her own self-doubt. Wasting too much breath on her mother is only doing a disservice to herself. She clears her throat and slowly puts her hat back on.

“Thanks, Red,” she says, doing her best to keep her voice steady. “Dunno where I'd be without ya.”

“Well, I do: you'd be lost without me, naturally. Wandering aimlessly, like a helpless baby chick that fell out of its nest and hasn't quite teased out how to fly.” She grins and claps Nisha on the shoulder. “S'alright. No need to admit it! Your soulful glances say more than your words ever could.”

Nisha chuckles at Scarlett's smirk, then elbows her sharply in the side. “If you don't bite your tongue, I might do it for ya.”

The corner of Scarlett's mouth slowly curls up further, exposing a pointed canine. “Don't threaten me with a good time.”

Nisha laughs and glances down, her face flushing. She slowly stands up and glances back at Scarlett, her nose almost as red as her hair. “C'mon. It's freezing out here.”

“Yeah.” Scarlett stretches and stands up. “Reckon your dad will be wondering where you got to.”

Nisha shrugs. Her father was in his bedroom when she left a few hours ago, and she doubts he's so much as moved since then. For reasons she's sure she'll never understand, she knows her father really did love his wife. “I think he needs more time to himself.”

“Well, I guess you'd know better than I would.” Scarlett kicks at the snow, then glances up at Nisha. “So where are we going?”

Nisha quirks an eyebrow at Scarlett. “Still got that rum?”

Scarlett grins and nods. “A fine choice.”

The two set off side by side and walk for awhile in silence. Nisha's thoughts keep turning back to the lake her mother's body was found in. _Drowning_. Something seemed off about it. It'd be one hell of an accident. And she knows her mother wouldn't have just jumped in herself – not without murdering Nisha and her father first.

“Can't believe she's dead,” Nisha says, glancing up. Even with slate-gray clouds blotting out most of the sky, the day seems a little brighter than before. “Finally.”

Scarlett snorts in agreement. “Couldn't have happened to a nicer person.”

“Yeah. Still.” Nisha clenches her fists, and her throat tightens. “Wish I coulda seen the bitch's face when she went. Hope she suffered.”

Scarlett hums. “Well if it's any consolation, I hear drowning is one of the most painful ways to go.”

Nisha lets out an amused hum. Then the back of her head tingles, and she slows to a stop, as Scarlett walks on unaware. She takes a few shallow breaths, as a rush of blood starts pounding in her neck. _No, no, no._ She _must_ have mentioned it to Scarlett at _some_ point... or maybe she read it on the ECHOnet – but no, there wouldn't even be any news on it, not _this_ soon. There _has_ to be...

Feeling the warmth leave her face and the air escape her lungs, Nisha looks up at Scarlett, some ten paces ahead.

That _cunt_.

 

⁂⁂⁂

 

Scarlett rubs her hands together and blows into them, studying the ground beneath her. Nisha will be alright. She might need time to adjust, but she'll be okay. Nisha's a survivor, always has been. And until then, Scarlett will be whatever kind of friend she needs to be. Just as she's always been. Then Scarlett frowns, noticing Nisha isn't walking beside her anymore.

Something hard slams into Scarlett's back, and she falls face-first into the snow, a heavy weight crushing down onto her. The impact stings across her chest as Nisha growls low in her ear, her warm breath flowing over the nape of Scarlett's neck. “ _You_ killed her!?”

While Scarlett fights to get her erratic breathing under control, Nisha rolls her over and punches her in the jaw. Numbing electricity spikes through the side of her face and down her neck.

“Start talkin'.”

Sucking in a slow, pained breath, Scarlett tries to push herself free, but Nisha forces her forearm down onto Scarlett's chest, pinning her. “I-I-I don't—”

“Bullshit. You're an awful liar and we both know it.” Her menacing orange eyes glower down at Scarlett. “I never told you she _drowned_ , and you've been with me the whole time since I found out.”

“Nisha, it's not what you think!” Scarlett pushes up against Nisha's arm and grunts. “Just calm down, yeah?”

Scarlett's eyes go wide. She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, but she regrets them more when Nisha's fist smashes into her nose.

Scarlett raises her arms to defend herself as Nisha straightens up and starts raining blows. A hard punch to her side, another stings her already throbbing jaw, then Nisha grabs her by the jacket, yanks and slams her into the ground. “You _killed_ her! After _all_ the _times_ I talked about getting BACK at her?!”

Yelping with each hit, Scarlett grabs onto Nisha's wrists and struggles to keep her hands at bay. “Nisha, please—!”

She wheezes as the sharp bone of Nisha's knee drives down into her sternum. Struggling for air, she lets go of Nisha's arms and tries to push her weight off. Nisha's hands clamp onto Scarlett's wrists and slam them into the ground. “You _knew_!” She leans down and snarls, baring her teeth. “You knew, and you killed her anyway!”

Nisha lets go of her wrists, then clamps her wiry fingers around Scarlett's throat. Her lungs burning and eyes stinging with tears, Scarlett raises a hand to Nisha's wrist, digging her fingernails weakly into her skin, but Nisha keeps squeezing. She lifts her other hand up, trying to push Nisha away, but Nisha keeps squeezing. As the drilling pain in her chest dulls to a throb, Scarlett's peripheral vision starts to turn to black, and the violet fades from Nisha's coat, leaving it a faded charcoal.

If her windpipe wasn't being crushed, Scarlett thinks she might be laughing. She's always admired Nisha's ferocity. But if it ever got her into any _real_ trouble, she always pictured Nisha being the one dying at her side in a blaze of glory, not squeezing her final breath out of her. Serves her right, really. The  _one_ time she goes out of her way to do something nice for somebody...

Just as the color starts to fade from Nisha's irises, the fury in them falters too, and she abruptly lets go of Scarlett's throat and sits back. Scarlett takes in a desperate breath, then coughs violently. She looks over at Nisha, her amber eyes still as icy as the snow soaking Scarlett's back. “You selfish ass!” Scarlett rasps.

Standing up, Nisha shoots her an incredulous look. “Me?! What about you? How could you do this to me?”

“To _you_?! Do what – save your life?!” With some effort, Scarlett pushes herself to one knee and spits the metallic taste out of her mouth. A streak of blood stains the white snow. “I spared you the anguish of realizing you'd never be able to do it yours—”

Nisha's boot slams into Scarlett's side, knocking her back to the ground. “So you think I'm a coward! Is that it?”

Scarlett groans and collapses onto her stomach, the sharp tingling pain shooting all the way down to her legs. It shouldn't be asking too much to expect a little gratitude. “No. Not a coward.” Through grit teeth, she spits out, “She _broke_ you.”

Nisha's jaw clenches. She jabs a finger at Scarlett and growls through grit teeth. “I don't need you protecting me!”

“She would have killed you! You _must_ know that! And you and I both know you weren't going to do a damn thing about it!”

Nisha's jaw quivers. For a moment, Scarlett can't tell if it's still from murderous rage, or if she's getting to her. She gets her answer when Nisha screams incoherently up at the sky. “ _Why_ , Scarlett?”

Her chest still stinging all over, Scarlett gingerly pushes herself to her knees. As she watches Nisha wear a track in the snow, Scarlett wonders how it was that while Nisha never followed through on her plans to stand up to her mother, she had no problem nearly choking the life out of _her_ , and staring into her eyes while she did it.

After the echoes of that question fade out in her mind, another question comes to mind, quieter, but clearer: why did she _stop_?

Nisha rubs the back of her head, avoiding Scarlett's gaze. Her voice trembles, the rage quickly falling away. “I mean, you _knew_. You knew that I wanted to – that I _had_ to...” Her lips move soundlessly as her bloodshot eyes find Scarlett's. “Is it 'cause you didn't care?”

Scarlett's throat hitches. She'd rather Nisha keep beating her than have to hear _that_. “You know that's not why,” she says, getting to her feet. “You know you weren't the only one who wanted to see the bitch dead.”

“That wasn't _your_ decision to make,” Nisha spits with a jab of her finger.

“Then what was I supposed to do?” Scarlett scoffs in disbelief. “Ignore all those silent cries for help? Stand by and wait 'til she killed you?”

Scarlett exhales slowly, looking past Nisha's clenched jaw and furrowed brows. Nisha's angry façade might have fooled her in the past, but now Scarlett can see the fear behind it all. The fear that every word she says is true.

Scarlett rubs her forehead and sighs. Even seeing that fear, here Scarlett stands, ready to lash out at her. And they both know – it's written all over Nisha's face – that if Scarlett _really_ wanted to hurt her, she could. Maybe worse than anybody else would be able to. “Come here,” Scarlett murmurs, taking a slow step forward. Nisha leans back slightly, but holds her ground. Scarlett closes the distance and hugs her, and Nisha stiffens in her arms.

“Come–” Nisha sighs. “C'mon, Red, what is this?”

“It's a _hug_ , you pillock.” She puts a hand to the back of Nisha's head. “Surely you've been hugged before.”

“Don't get smart.”

She keeps her arms wrapped around her and soothes her hair until she feels the tension start to leave Nisha's back. She knows it's not Nisha lashing out at her, it's her mother. A mother who took every opportunity to tell her daughter that nobody could ever love such an ungrateful little shit. A person can only be told she's worthless so many times until she'll start to believe it.

“I could've... I could've done it, you know?” Nisha whispers. “I could've killed her.”

Scarlett sighs. It doesn't take her long to think of something reassuring to tell her. “Shh shh. I know. I know you could have.”

As the words come out of her mouth, Scarlett realizes the best lie she could ever tell is convincing people she's bad at it. But as she pulls away and looks at the cracks in Nisha's stained-glass eyes, she knows all that really matters is that Nisha believes her.

She isn't sure how long they stand there together, holding each other as if they were each afraid the other might dissolve should they ever let go. Scarlett only realizes that it's started snowing by the time Nisha speaks again.

“C'mon.” Nisha brushes her thumb against Scarlett's lip, then wipes her hand on her jacket. “You must be freezing. I did tackle you into a snowbank.”

Scarlett chuckles. “Maybe a little chilly. Don't suppose you'd be interested in keeping me warm on the walk back?”

Nisha replies with a raised eyebrow.

“No? Well.” Scarlett grins playfully. “Can't blame a girl for trying.”

Nisha gives her a light (for Nisha's standards) jab on the shoulder, and the two of them set off back to town, side by side, accompanied by the crunching of snow under their boots. Scarlett lets her mind drift as she studies the bare-limbed trees lining the pathway. The scarce rays of sunlight peeking through the clouds hit the ice clinging to the trees' limbs, shining through in a soft spectrum of color. Scarlett tries to ignore how close she came to never seeing it.

Nisha clears her throat. “Scarlett?”

Scarlett raises her eyebrows at her. “'Scarlett'? What, no 'Red'? Are you about to get _real_ with me, Nisha?”

Nisha sighs and presses on. “Look. I'm not really good at this whole... _feelings_ thing. And...” She trails off, shaking her head, muttering too low for Scarlett to hear.

“Oh, come now.” Scarlett grins and nudges her with an elbow. “It's alright! I promise I won't let anybody else know you even _have_ feelings, much less expressed them.”

“Look. I just wanted to tell you... sorry that I almost—”

“Bup bup bup.” Scarlett holds up a finger and presses it to Nisha's lips. “Stop right there. You don't need to say anything else. I just... I want to cherish this moment.”

Nisha raises an eyebrow at her, then looks down at her finger.

“I mean, I've known you for, what, four years now...” Scarlett flashes her a lopsided grin and lets her hand fall back to her side. “And I don't think you have ever genuinely apologized to me for anything before now.”

Nisha purses her lips together in a vain attempt to hide a smile. “Well, in that case, forget it.”

Scarlett puts her arm around Nisha's shoulders. “Seriously, though. No apology necessary. I'll be there for you 'til I die. Even if that means taking the occasional beating.”

“Aw, what, _this_?” Scarlett flinches as Nisha brushes a knuckle against her tender jaw. “Trust me, Red. This was _nothin'_.”


End file.
